Alice Marilyn "Ali" Rose
Alice Marilyn "Ali" Rose is the main character of Burlesque. She is played by singer Christina Aguilera. Ali ran away from a small town in Iowa after she stole some money from her boss who didn't pay her. She took a bus to Los Angeles and never returned to the small town. She finds herself an apartment and hides her money in the water storage tank of her toilet. While looking for a new job at night, she stumbles across a Burlesque theater. She enters and is dazzled by the performance of the showgirls. She goes to the bar and asks the bartender, who is Jack Miller, where she can find someone to give her a job as one of the showgirls. He tells her to go backstage and ask for Tess. She finds Tess, who sarcastically says she can leave her name and number with Jack to get a job. Not giving up easily, she sees that a man needs to be serviced at a table, so she asks him what he would like to drink. She goes to get his drink from the bar and is given a waitress job by Jack. During her shift, she sees the showgirls dancing to "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" and imagines she is there singing the outro to the song in a dazzling performance. Returning to her apartment, she finds it has been ransacked by her old Iowa boss. The bag she stored her hidden money in the toilet with is empty. She is found crying on the curb by Jack who offers his apartment to her. In his apartment the next morning, she makes him breakfast. At Burlesque theater, when the auditions are over and Tess is dissapointed, Ali makes a surprise audition and begins to sing and dance. Tess stops her and begins to walk away when Ali says "I'm talking to you!", which Tess responds to by letting Ali continue. Ali amazes Tess and Tess gives Ali the job saying to Sean she will regret it, which she never does. During her first performance Nikki messes with the music for the show, forcing Ali to sing and dance without aid. Tess is more than impressed with this and says she is allowing all future shows to sing and dance. After one of her performances, Ali asks many of her friends to get a ride home, but they all left. Jack tells her he has to do inventory. Marcus, the man trying to buy out Tess from Burlesque theater to build a hotel, offers Ali a ride, saying Coco left a few minutes ago. Ali goes with him, later to find out he is taking her to his party. At the party she sees a pair of shoes that she likes and tells Marcus how she is going to dream about them. Trying to impress her, he sends a pair of the shoes to her at Burlesque theater, where her friends are excited for her, but Nikki is jealous. Tess tells Ali after the other showgirls have left that she should be careful with Marcus because she does not like him. At Georgia's wedding, Jack breaks up with Natalie over the phone. He gets drunk at the bar where Ali later finds him. He and her go to his apartment where they sleep together. In the morning after a day at Burlesque theater, Natalie storms into Jack's apartment saying she is not a woman who can be broken up with over the phone. Ali leaves, feeling betrayed by Jack. She goes to Sean's apartment where she finds him sleeping with Mark. She leaves the comfort of Sean to go to Marcus's house where she learns of his plans to build a hotel where Burlesque theater is. She returns to Burlesque theater to tell Tess how to stop her theater from being taken down. Backstage, Jack finds Ali saying he never should have let her walk out his apartment door. They kiss and he tells her he wrote a song for her named "Show Me How You Burlesque". She sings the song as Jack watches her and the movie ends.